月度归档： 2010 年 8 月

Rom Shing Hakka Opera Troupe brought us the opera Invading the Dragon Palace at Toronto Harbourfront Centre this evening.

For the past 20 years the Rom Shing Hakka Opera Troupe has actively participated in a variety of performances around Taiwan and overseas to help promote the art form of traditional Chinese Hakka opera. The troupe combines the “nine styles and 18 modes” of Hakka opera with comedic and humorous dialogue.

Plot Synopsis

The monkey king Wukong is in need of a unique weapon to defend his home base on Huaguo Mountain, which he occupies with a band of monkeys. After searching high and low with no avail, Wukong desperately dives into the sea and demands Hailongwang, the dragon king of the sea to offer the best weapons in his underwater palace. When the dragon king refuses to lend out the divine needle – a powerful relic used for flood control in ancient times – to Wukong, a hustling uproar begins.

The Little Pear Garden Collective is a federally incorporated non-profit cultural arts organization in Canada. Directed by artistic director Emily Cheung, her vision and company’s mandate is to raise the profile of professional Chinese-Canadian artists through the presentation and production of high calibre artistic programming.

继续阅读Chinese Dance

Noodle specialist chef Ken Sun of Sun’s Kitchen demonstrates the fine art of “la mian” (hand-pulled) noodles along with musical accompaniment.There is a five-minute drumming demo at the beginning, as well as more drumming in the middle and at the end.

“La mian” means “handmade” or “hand-pulled noodles.” These noodles originated from the northwestern part of China. Over the centuries, the art of handmade noodles has reached the vast corners of China and has consequently become a part of many regional Chinese cuisines. As a result, different types of handmade noodles have evolved adapting to regional flavours and ingredients.

Lanzhou-style la mian is the most common type of noodles throughout China, especially in north-western China. Many of the small Lanzhou-style la mian restaurants are owned by Hui Muslim Chinese and serve only halal food. Lamian restaurants are the most common halal restaurants in eastern China.

Lamian restaurants often sell Daoxiaomian knife-sliced noodles as well. You can also find Daoxiaomian making demonstration in this video.

You must have noticed the Japanese taiko drumming accompaniment in this video. What does taiko have to be do with La mian? I guess that’s because Japanese love La mian which they call ramen. “La mian” in Chinese and “Ramen” in Japanese are the same in written form, although are pronounced slightly different.